2/20/2010

Today it was my day to go out into the bush for the plants FFP. We started out the day with a lecture on bats, talking about the various projects that can be done with the population dynamics. After that, we prepared and jumped into the GDV to go to the next two plant sites. It was a really long drive (1 ½ hours either way), and I was glad for my iPod. On the way, we stopped to pick up some elephant dung (I’m not sure what the purpose was, but there’s always a reason), and we also got some dung beetles for our collection. When we got to the site, we walked around taking branches from the trees, identifying them as we went. We also were collecting any millipedes we saw for a dung beetle trap (in the Cape, dung beetles are carnivorous. Kind of a misnomer). After we were done, we drove to the next site. We didn’t get out, however, as the plant crew already had too much data to deal with. We then went back to camp, and analyzed the branches we had collected. Afterwards, I worked with my group on our cartoon analysis. We are taking a political cartoon about south African politics and discussing the history behind it. This evening, we didn’t really have a lot planned, so Evan performed a magic show for the instructors. Hilarity ensued.